Hurt
by gracepresley
Summary: Toby has a daughter and she's coming to stay with him for the summer. He's hoping they can mend their (practically nonexistent) relationship, but it's been too long and it might be too late.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Okay. So this chapter will be the backstory, and it's kinda long, which might not be so entertaining, but very necessary.

I know I'm getting facts about his family wrong, so y'all don't need to tell me. I know about his home life, but it's complicated as hell. His sister and niece and dad that's, like, not his real dad, but then isn't his real dad around too? And I think his sister's a lot older than him. And just… I really hate characters having complicated families. I like the main character to be complicated, and the family to be simple. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate, right? Let's say, for the sake of this fanfic, that his dad is his real dad, parents married, sister's closer to his age, and his niece doesn't exist. I will try not to bring up the family that much, but for the backstory I kinda have to. So just remember I know it's not accurate.

* * *

"Toby," she said quietly, pulling on my sleeve.

I heard her, but I didn't say anything, because I was afraid I might start crying in front of my girlfriend and that would be embarrassing. But that's what I felt like doing. Crying. Maybe for the rest of my life. And I was angry, too, that God, if He is up there somewhere, would even allow this to happen to me. I was a kid. I was too young to handle it and I just wanted it to go away. If I could, I would have taken it all back right then. I wouldn't think about it.

"Toby, are you gonna tell your mom?" Lauren asked.

"I have to," I replied, looking straight at my feet.

"I can't tell my mom. I can't. And my Dad… he'll hate me. He'll _hate_ me."

"You should go home, Lauren," I told her.

"What?"

"It's late. Your Mom'll call soon for you anyway. Just go now."

She sat there for a minute, beside me on my bed, before getting up and leaving. And when she left, I fell apart.

Her parents were the ones that told my parents and after that my parents weren't the same for a long time. My Mom usually talked a lot, but after that she always seemed zoned out and was a lot more quiet. She talked to my sister normally sometimes, but with me she never knew what to say. She was still mad. She would always be mad, I guessed.

And my Dad. He never talked much to begin with. He was quiet, reserved. Spent his time not at work in his garage, building, well, whatever he thought to build. But after he found out, he was mad at me like he never had been before. He didn't not talk to me because he just wasn't a talker, but didn't talk to me because he hated me. I was the biggest disappointment. No one in our family had ever fucked up so bad as to get someone pregnant at fourteen.

It was the worst thing I could have possibly done in their eyes. Get a girl pregnant. The second worst thing would be just to have sex, though, if Lauren hadn't gotten pregnant, they would never have found out about that.

I wanted Lauren to get an abortion. It was so simple. Everything would be fixed and back to normal. I would grow up and have kids when I was emotionally and financially ready. But neither my mother nor hers would ever allow that. Lauren wanted it too, though. She even told me she wished it would just die inside her so she wouldn't have to worry about it. I wished that too. It wasn't real yet. It wasn't a baby, but just a big mistake that would ruin our lives. We wanted it gone any way it could go. I hated it.

But on April 26th, 2000, it became real. And I looked at an angel wrapped in a pink blanket and she opened her eyes and they were hazel, just like mine. I remember before she was born hoping she'd have Lauren's blue eyes because I liked them better than my own, but then I saw her and I wouldn't have changed anything. I never even thought newborn babies were cute until I saw my own. I always said they looked like little aliens, but not my baby. She was beautiful. The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and I didn't want to stop looking at her. But the nurses had to take her so I had to let her go. I waited by the nursery window for her to be put in one of the cribs so I could see her again. I couldn't believe that I was capable of creating another life. That day everything felt so surreal.

Her name was Avanna. I thought it was stupid. It wasn't even a real name. Lauren made it up. So I called her Van. I thought it made her sound cool. Kinda tough. Eventually, the nickname caught on and everyone called her that.

I told myself I would be the best dad in the world. But that just didn't happen.

Lauren and I broke up when Van was about two months old. I didn't really ever like Lauren that much, I guess, but she was pretty and willing to date me so I just went with it. She didn't go to the same school as I did, so once we broke up we didn't see each other much. She brought Van over sometimes, but I usually didn't do much with her. My sister or my mom did, then got mad at me for playing video games the whole time. But I just didn't know what to do.

When Lauren went on a trip with her school (it was some kind of band thing, I think) for a weekend her parents left Van with us. She was one and she cried a lot. I didn't hardly touch her the whole time. I went to the movies, I went to my friend's house, I claimed I had an essay due Monday—whatever could get me out of taking care of a child. I didn't know how to do that.

When I left for college I didn't see her for an entire year. Lauren (and Van) went to Virginia and I stayed in Florida. It just never worked out. After a year, Lauren came back to our hometown for Christmas, and I was there too, so we got together. We had lunch. I saw Van. She was five. Her brown hair was long and wavy. Then I left and didn't see her for two more years.

After those two years I decided I was going to see her for holidays. I wanted to at least do that. So I did. I visited for Christmas and for her birthday. It was always a little awkward. She was a little uncomfortable and I was too. It wasn't like we knew each other. But when I visited her for her 15th birthday in April, Lauren had a plan.

Van would stay with me for the whole summer. The _whole_ summer. I wasn't sure about that. Van wasn't sure about that. Actually, she was probably completely against it, but just didn't want to say that. But Lauren was going Africa to tell kids about Jesus (Lauren had become very religious when she was in college; it was pretty sudden) and Van did _not_ want to accompany her, so if she could stay with me in LA, well that would be perfect. We could bond (and this is what she told me when Van wasn't in the room) and I could finally get to really know her. We could actually have a relationship.

If I couldn't, then her parents could, but it would be 'so totally great' if I could.

And I said I could. But I wasn't sure I could.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Summer of 2015, so, the future for me at this time. But if you're reading this in the summer of 2015, and some facts are off or something, that's why. I don't know how things'll have changed by then, like in Toby's life or whatever. Actually, if I'm honest, I don't watch Toby's videos anymore and I haven't since, maybe, iJobuscus, so if this is all wrong, I apologize. I don't watch him anymore, I don't like him all that much anymore, but I can't not write about him because as far as appearances go, he's flawless, and totally the kind of guy you write about. Plus, if I don't like him in real life, I can write him to be someone I like, which is cool.

Also, sorry for the long Author's notes. I do apologize for them. The long author's notes. The ones that I apologize for. I am so sorry that I write such long author's notes that no one probably reads anyway. I'm eating pop-tarts at school in an empty classroom. I like pop-tarts, but only the brown sugar ones and the cookie dough ones. I skipped lunch because I have no friends in that lunch wave. Wait, what was I saying? Oh, yeah—sorry for the long author's notes.

* * *

My friends knew about Van.

The Audience did not, though.

It wasn't like I wanted to keep her a secret, necessarily, but just that the story was complicated. I was a kid. I was stupid. I didn't know how to deal with what was going on. I didn't even really like kids, and I didn't know how to talk to them. They were weird. They said weird things. Half the time they looked weird. I was better at it now, since most of my viewers were kids, but at fifteen I just didn't know how to handle it. So I decided not to handle it. It was wrong, but there was no going back.

They would all make assumptions and I didn't know how to even explain something like that to them all. So I just didn't. I took the easy way out.

But it was a week before Van was getting here for the summer.

So I had to make a video. Telling the Audience. That I have a child. A fifteen year old daughter. The result of a teenage pregnancy. And they didn't know about her because I only saw her twice a year. And I'm a shit dad. And everyone will hate me. And unsubscribe. And then I'll run out of money. And then I'll have to become a male prostitute or something. Then Van will hate me even more.

I put my phone in my little phone tripod that I bought off the internet for about thirty dollars. I hadn't used it yet because I always just held my phone to make videos. I bought it almost a year ago. I was only going to use it because I was making a serious video and when I thought about serious videos I did not imagine the camera shaking all over the place because I couldn't keep my hand still.

But then I took it off the tripod and just held it because I found the idea of the tripod very awkward. And although the video was serious, it wasn't _that_ serious. I wasn't telling them I had two weeks to live or anything.

If I had been telling the Audience that I had a five year old daughter whose name was, like, Katie or Hope or Daisy and I didn't know I had her until a week ago when she showed up at my door, well, they would probably adore the idea of that. Me taking her in, asking where her mother is. She'd tell me 'My mom died,' in a tiny little high-pitched voice and then I'd adopt her and at first it'd be difficult, but then I'd become an awesome father and we'd bond and it would be just like a fucking movie. They would be excited.

But that wasn't the story. It wasn't a fucking movie. It was just life, and it was shitty and the story was shitty. And I wasn't an awesome dad. I was a horrible one. And I hated myself for that.

So I decided I wouldn't even tell the whole story. I would just tell them the basics, and let them wonder about all the details.

I tapped the red button and started recording.

Basically: I said I had a kid. I said I knew it was shocking, and maybe they wouldn't believe me, but I was not kidding. I said she's fifteen and she's coming to stay with me for the summer because her mom was on a trip. I said she would fly in on Monday of next week. I said I might be slacking on my uploads at first.

And that was kind of it. I went a little bit more into detail, but not too much, and the video was barely three minutes. I uploaded it. It was nine at night in LA, so in Norfolk, Virginia it would be twelve. Van was already asleep there. Or at least I hoped so, because it was exam week for her. After today, it was two down, six to go, I believed. And when she was done with those, she'd be done with freshman year. She'd probably spend the weekend saying goodbye to her friends (she told me she only has four friends, and one lives in Missouri, and only two go to her school, so everyone thinks she's a loser). Then she and Lauren would get on a plane.

Lauren had the thing planned out already. She was going on the plane with Van, because it was Van's first time flying and she was really nervous. Then we'd eat lunch together. Then Lauren would come back to my house and see that Van's stuff got situated. Then she'd go back to the airport, get on her plane, and meet up with her church group at the airport there.

After she explained all that to me, I said, 'All right. Sounds good'.

The comments were a mess. There were multiple wars going on, and because of the way YouTube sorted comments, I saw them all first. Barack Obama (probably not actually the president) started one by saying that I clearly don't care about the audience because if I did, I would have told them about Van a long time ago. Then Meagan Buscus replied and said that I was probably trying to keep my daughter safe, and maybe I didn't want her all over the internet. The other replies were just cut in half, with 50% siding with Barack and 50% siding with Meagan. Some Guy (his actual username) said that Meagan and all the people agreeing with her were just blinded by their obsession with me and couldn't see that I was a total asshole because of it. That started a completely different argument. There were 214 replies and I read them all.

I stopped at eleven, closing my laptop angrily and laying back on the couch. It was exactly what I wanted to avoid.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I have never been on a plane, so I don't know how that goes, and the airport where I live is tiny. Like tiny, tiny. We don't have any stores or anything in there. We have a Subway. The sandwich place. That is all. And it's, like, deserted. It's never the least bit crowded.

So I have no idea how LAX is. I can't even imagine. Apparently it's massive and there's a ton of stores and shit in there. If I get it all wrong, sorry.

* * *

I sat in one of the chairs at the airport for a few minutes, but I was bad at keeping still, and I was nervous so I felt the need to pace. So I got up and walked around aimlessly, looking in all the stores.

It was weird. I didn't know a lot about Van. I barely knew anything about Van. She was just my daughter. I just gave her an X chromosome. It didn't mean anything unless I was actually involved in her life.

I knew her best friends were Alyssa and Neha and Shaquine and Sarah. I knew she couldn't stand when people put their ketchup directly on their fries, instead of dipping them one at a time. I knew she never wore matching socks (she just wore the two she picked up first). I knew she always ordered chicken fingers and fries, but then only ate the fries. I knew she drank too much caffeine. I knew she liked the color purple, and the color pink, and she hated the color yellow, unless it was nail polish. I knew she always had her nails painted. I knew she always had wintergreen tic tacs with her. I knew Lauren made her brush her teeth three times a day because of all the sugar she ate. I knew she loved Starbuck's, but Lauren never took her there because she said it was too expensive. I knew she liked to write. I knew she was shy.

I knew some things about my daughter, but I didn't know enough for it to mean anything.

When Lauren texted me saying they just landed, I turned and started to walk back towards the terminal, only then realizing how far from it I had gotten in my wandering.

There were too many people there. I was never much a fan of airports. I hated them, actually. I saw a bunch of people coming out, meeting with their friends or family, hugging, talking, whatever. They had to have been on Van's plane, so I just waited.

I saw Lauren first, and she smiled, and waved. She had on a flowy orange shirt and jeans with Toms. She always wore Toms. There was a gold cross around her neck and I remembered when she was probably fourteen her telling me she hated gold jewelry. Her brown hair was stick straight (I knew Van was jealous of that) and she had cut it shorter, at her shoulders. Her blue eyes were complemented by the longest eyelashes I had ever seen. I always liked that.

Van was behind her, and she smiled too, but it was tight, and, I imagined, forced. Her dark brown hair was all pulled up into a bun on the top of her head, which wasn't usual. I had only seen her wear it down, and it fell all the way down her back, close to her waist. She was in a plain black and white striped t-shirt, and flowy black shorts. She had on her white Vans. She liked Vans a lot, and I thought that was ironic.

"Toby!" Lauren said, coming up to me and giving me a hug.

"Hey," I said, looking first at her, then to Van.

Van just gave a shy wave, then reached up and tucked her bangs behind her ear.

While we waited for their luggage, Lauren was the only one really talking. She was telling me about Africa, and what she'd be doing there, and how excited she was. Didn't it all sound so great? She knew I wasn't religious, and she wasn't one to try and 'save' people who didn't want to be 'saved' (me), but she did talk about God an awful lot. She wasn't preachy about it. She just thought about it a lot, I guess, and couldn't not talk about it. It didn't bother me, really.

Lauren's bags were going to Africa with the other people in the missions group (or whatever that's called), so we only had Van's stuff, but she had a lot of stuff. We somehow managed to get it in my not-very-big car.

"So where are we eating?" I asked when we were all in the car.

"We've never had In-N-Out, so…" Van said and it was the first time she said anything other than 'yeah' or 'no'.

"Oh, right. You poor souls. We'll definitely go there."

"I'm excited!" Lauren exclaimed. Lauren was usually excited.

So we went there. And when we sat down Lauren had to go to bathroom, which left Van and me alone, and I was sure she did it on purpose. Van was typing on her phone, smiling at it, but only slightly, and I wasn't sure I should interrupt the text conversation she was probably having with Sarah or Alyssa or Neha or Shaquine, but Lauren was going to leave us alone for three whole months in just a few hours, and I knew I would have to talk to her, and she would have to talk to me, and why not start then?

"Has your mom ever done this before? A mission trip or whatever?" I asked, causing her to look up from her phone.

"She went to Nicaragua for, like, two weeks last summer. I stayed with Bebe and Pop," she answered, referring to Lauren's parents.

"You ever thought about going on one?"

She laughed, surprising me, and put her phone down. "Nah. Not for me. I have no reason to need religion. See, the story with Mom is, she, like, you know, made a mistake when she was my age, got pregnant, was all depressed or whatever, then, when she was in college, she decided she was going to turn her life around. So she found Jesus," she explained. "It's cool, I guess." She shrugged. "I'm not much like her. I think I'm more like you, which fucking sucks, but I've come to terms with it."

Then she picked up her phone and started typing and smiling again. It was quiet until Lauren came back because I was so shocked at what she'd said that I couldn't even respond. She'd said being like me 'fucking sucks'. She said 'fuck'. She spoke in sentences. She said she didn't need religion. What was the most shocking? I just let that go and when Lauren got back we talked about the cool sinks in the bathroom. I liked that conversation much more.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** I'm almost completely sure Toby's house is a one bedroom, but let's pretend he has a spare because that makes things much easier.

BY THE WAY THIS IS BEING POSTED ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE DAY I MET TOBY. TWO YEARS AGO. PLAYLIST LIVE 2013. MARCH 23rd.

Also: THANKS NICOLE you're the real MVP

* * *

"I think she hates me," I confessed to Lauren while she was putting some of Van's clothes into a dresser drawer. She stopped when I said that, a pink folded t-shirt in her hand, and looked up at me with an almost worried expression. "Like, I don't know, I thought we were kinda okay, but now I'm thinking she hates me."

Lauren smiled then, and put the pink shirt away, then looked back to me. "She doesn't hate you. If anything, she hates me right now for going away. She doesn't want to be here. But not because of you. But anyway, she'll end up liking this, I think. She talks about wanting to live here all the time, actually."

"LA?"

"Yeah. She loves LA. And once she's done being mad she'll really like it, I think," she said, tilting her head. She must have seen that I wasn't very convinced because she reached out and put a hand on my arm and repeated, "She doesn't hate you."

"What are we gonna do when you leave?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Eat dinner."

"What'll we eat?"

"I don't know. I don't know what you have. But stop worrying. It'll be okay," she said and bent down, picking up a few pairs of shorts from Van's suitcase, putting them in the second drawer with the other bottoms. "Are you still dating that girl?" She asked suddenly, randomly.

"What? What girl?"

"Weird name," she said, furrowing her brows trying to think of it.

"Olga?"

"Yes! Her!" She exclaimed, smiling big and pointing at me.

"Not really. What does that have to do with anything?" I answered in the only way I knew how. We were very on-again off-again, so I always just said 'not really', although, at the time, we were pretty much off.

"Well I don't know. I mean, our daughter is a teenage girl and all. It might help having another girl around. But no sleepovers! Do not have a girl spend the night here while Van's here," she ordered, looking very serious.

"What? Oh my God. I would never," I said, shocked.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at me._ 'Sure you wouldn't'_. I could practically hear her say it. Then she looked at the time on her phone. She said she'd need to leave around 5:30, and it was 5.

"Not too much sugar," she said, putting her phone back on the dresser, and getting the last of the clothes from the suitcase.

"What?"

"Don't let her have too much sugar," she clarified. "And when you take her to Starbuck's—and if I know you, you'll go every day—don't let her put extra sugar in the already-sweetened coffee. She always tries! She says it makes her feel good. She'll put about seven in there if you let her. Don't let her. And get her to drink water every now and then. But you have to get Dasani. She swears it tastes better than all the others. But even when you do get it, she won't drink it unless you make her. She likes Coke, but don't let her have too much of it."

I just stared at her because it already sounded pretty difficult. And I didn't think there would be so many instructions with a teenager. I thought they kind of just did what they wanted to.

"Don't worry," she said again.

I nodded. I went over to Van's bed, which I had gotten about a month ago. I picked up her purple and grey comforter and put it over her grey sheets. I had been in the middle of making the bed when I started talking to Lauren and getting sidetracked.

Then thirty minutes later Nicole left. She said her goodbyes, taking a while to do that. She told Van she loved her like ten times and Van kept saying it back, but sounded a little annoyed after the first few times.

When she walked out the door, Van and I both just watched the closed door for a minute in silence. Then we looked at each other. She reached up and pulled her hair out of the bun, ran her hands through the messy waves a few times. She looked at me again, crossed her arms.

"What now?" She asked. Her tone was harsh, but I swore she smiled at me.

I shrugged. "Do you like pizza?" I asked.

"That's actually the dumbest thing anyone has ever asked anyone," was her response.

"What kind?"

"Cheese."

"All right," I said. "You care which place?"

"Domino's so we can use the pizza tracker," she decided.

"Good idea."

We ate mostly in silence. We were both eating on the couch, but I was on my phone and she was watching Degrassi on my Amazon account (she seemed incredibly excited when she asked if I had prime and I said yes).

She broke the silence when we were eating our second slices by saying, "I don't see how you can eat that."

I'd ordered two pizzas, because I was lactose intolerant so mine couldn't have cheese on it. I always just put a ton of toppings on it to maybe make me forget there was no cheese.

"If I was lactose intolerant I would set myself on fire TBH," Van said seriously, but I had to laugh a little.

"It's not that bad."

"Not that bad? Mac and cheese is probably one of my favorite things in the whole world. I couldn't not eat it. And cereal. You have to eat it with, what, soy milk? Gross. Can you eat butter?"

"In moderation," I answered. There was very little lactose in butter. My Mom always told me that, and it must have been true, because I always put it on my rolls.

"Chocolate?"

"Some kinds."

"That's honestly the worst thing ever. Could I have inherited that? I mean, obviously I didn't, but could I have? Hypothetically?" She asked.

"Probably," I replied with a shrug. I wasn't actually sure if it was something you inherited because no one else in my family that I knew of had it.

"I'm so glad I didn't. I inherited enough bad stuff from you as is."

"Like what?" I asked, leaning forward and looking at her then, because that caught my attention.

"Your hair. Your nose, I think. Eyesight. I'm left handed so I always smear the words on my paper," she listed, sitting her plate down, just the crust left, next to her and rubbing her elbow. "Oh, and, this is weird and I don't know if it's actually a genetic thing or whatever, but we both run out of breath super fast."

"I'm kinda offended," I said half-jokingly.

"No offense."

"You already offended me. It's too late for 'no offense'."

"I'm getting Gryphon," she told me, changing the subject.

She got up, picking up her plate. She went and threw it away first before going to slide open the door. Gryphon ran in and she leaned over and petted him. It was funny how much she looked like my daughter at that moment.


End file.
